Your business can help keep Richardson clean

Looking for a fun and easy way you and your employees can help make Richardson better?

Now that the heat is abating, get back outdoors and spend a day clearing litter from an area near your workplace.

Clean-ups are facilitated by the City’s Health Department, which has a number of ways to help businesses, nonprofit organizations and other groups spruce up the city.

“This is a great way for groups to get out and contribute to the community by improving the quality of our environment,” said Bill Alsup, health sirector. “We are very appreciative of all the companies and organizations that partner with us on all of our environmental initiatives throughout the year, the cumulative effect of everyone’s contribution makes a real difference.”

Interested groups can clean up an area near their office/school/neighborhood or the Health Department can recommend an area where windblown and waterborne trash tends to accumulate. These areas include utility and railroad right-of-ways, creek drainage areas, and areas near sidewalks and trails. The areas can be divided into sections to accommodate the size of the group or the amount of time to be spent on the clean-up event.

The Health Department will supply everything: trash and recycling bags, vinyl gloves, and trash tongs free of charge. Filled trash bags can be left in one pile at the clean-up site and a city crew will pick them up.

“All the company has to provide is the manpower,” Allsup said.

Other Environmental Partnership Initiatives include Richardson Plants, which encourages the planting of trees and wildflowers around the city, and the Storm Draining Marking Program, which places a round plastic marker next to storm drain inlets that states “This Drain for Rain, Flows to Creek, Don’t Dump.”

For more information on scheduling a clean-up, contact the Health Department at 972-744-4080. For more information on the Environmental Partnership Initiatives, visit www.cor.net/epi.